Helene Thank You Note
Dear First UMC Friends and Family,
I am writing to share with you a few updates about the ongoing recovery efforts in the NC Mountains in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. You may recall that there are three phases to this work: rescue, relief, and recovery. Some areas of the mountains are still in the relief phase and many areas are working their way through the recovery effort.
Sometimes there are setbacks, such as the intense rain on Monday, May 12th that dumped up to seven inches of rain in many areas and washed out a good number of temporary bridges and some temporary shelters. The recovery work will be going on for years to come.
I recently found this article relating some of the stories and experiences of people who were hard hit in Yancey County, which is two counties southwest of Avery County. Much of eastern Yancey County is on the slope of Mount Mitchell, and it borders Tennessee on its northwestern line. This article relays the devastation in a way that I haven’t yet seen in other articles, and it includes videos of how 30 inches of rain can turn small stream into a destructive force of nature.
Click & Go to read the full article.
I am also writing to thank you for the generous outpouring of love and financial support from so many of you through your gifts to the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), the Western North Carolina Conference Disaster Recovery Center, and the First UMC Avery County Discretionary Fund. You all gave a total of $8496.58 to the Avery County Fund alone, not counting what you gave to UMCOR or our Western North Carolina Conference.
We used some of the money you gave for Avery County to deliver and serve approximately 900 hot meals over the course of six weeks. We also gave money to Tyro Baptist Church to rebuild the bridge on the driveway of Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Brown of Minneapolis, NC. You might have seen an article about the Browns earlier this year in the Lexington Dispatch. Mr. Brown was my eighth-grade middle school principal.
After the hot meal ministry was no longer needed, we had around $2800 left in the Avery County Fund. Cheryl and I discussed this, and I reached out to United Methodist pastor friends also from Avery County, and we decided to send the remainder of the money to Altamont United Methodist Church, which was the only United Methodist Church in Avery County to receive significant damage.
We used money from the pastoral discretionary fund to round the amount up to $3000, and sent the check last month. Please see the attached thank you note from Ann Hampton, who is the treasurer at Altamont, and a long-time friend of my parents. You might also be interested to know that my father, Rev. Keith Tutterow, served at Altamont in the late 1960’s and again from 1996-2002. The estimated cost to repair their damage ran around $400,000, and that is being funded through the hard work of members and the generosity of many United Methodist Churches across the conference, including us.
For this, I thank each and every one of you with all my heart.
Click & Go to view Thank You Note from Altamont
If you want to make a donation for further work in the mountains, you can make it directly to the Conference Disaster Relief Center:
How you can help:
- Pray for those impacted by Hurricane Helene.
- Financial Donations: To donate to support WNCCUMC recovery efforts directly. Donate here: Click & Go
- Checks can be made out to "Office of Disaster Response" and mailed to PO Box 2757, Huntersville, NC 28070, with the memo "Helene."
Thank you again for all you do to help people in need.
In Christ,
Rev. Kirk Tutterow